Upload with YouTube

The approach we recommend instead is using AuthSub or OAuth 2 (please don’t use ClientLogin!) to authenticate users and allow users to access their YouTube accounts. Then, you can use the browser-based upload flow to transmit the video from users’ local drives to YouTube’s servers. Uploads spread across end users’ accounts are less likely to trigger quota errors.

The online video giant says this method also insulates developers from potential copyright issues that come from accepting terms on behalf of users.

Geocoding Adopts Open MapQuest API

Geocaching.com averages about 2,000,000 map loads per day, placing us firmly within that small percentage of affected consumers. After discussing available options, we made the difficult decision to reduce our reliance on Google Maps and take steps to better integrate Leaflet and OpenStreetMap.

Currently the tiles are loaded using MapQuest's version of the OpenStreetMap tiles (the same one running the MapQuest Open API). We previously covered a real estate maps site that also had to leave Google over the pricing.

Music Hackday San Francisco

For startups like SoundCloud, events like Music Hack Day yield creations that could one day find themselves integrated with the company's core product. The vast majority, however, will not. And that's okay. The event's value is of a much deeper nature, in that it fosters a developer community around music and brings a wide range of players into the same room, from independent coders to music industry representatives.

Google Plus API Hackathons

Google is focusing a lot on Google Plus now and especially seems to be doing so in emerging markets. It announced three upcoming hackathons in Africa:

Remember to start today on getting those creative juices flowing! Familiarize yourself with the API and review these resources. Begin gathering ideas and coding a little. Take advantage of the Google+ Platform Office Hours on the 15th of February. If you have any questions, please address them to us in our Google+ Hangout on February 23. Use the Hackathon to perfect your application and win one of the multiple prizes we will be awarding - including a ticket for the overall winning application to Google’s premiere developer event, Google I/O!

The three events will take place in Nigeria, Ghana and Uganda during March.

23 New APIs

Today we had 23 new APIs added to our API directory including an acronym service, over-the-counter securities trading service, online learning platform, live stock feed, photo conversion service,website creation platform and a location-based mobile game. Below is more details on each of these new APIs.

Acromine API: The service provides access to a dictionary of abbreviations and matching long-form terms created by automatic text mining of the whole MEDLINE abstract collection as of August 2009. The text mining completed automated analysis of natural language documents to detect and document relationships or patterns that would be difficult or impossible for human readers to detect. The API allows look-up against a compilation of over 68,000 acronyms and 450,000 full terms.

API methods support submission of either abbreviations or full terms to the Acromine dictionary, which returns matches including the standard form of the term, frequency of occurrence in the texts mined, and the year of first occurrence. Returned data also provides variants or similar terms found, with their frequency and first occurrence.

Bclear API: The service supports over-the-counter (OTC) trading in derivative securities from issuers in Europe, Russia, South Korea, and the United States. It allows applications to register trades trades in futures and options, then process and clear the transactions through NYSE Liffe. In addition, trades in the OTC market can be imported to risk management algorithms to assess overall market activity.

API methods allow retrieval of general market data and specific contract information. The API also handles submission and deletion of trades in the OTC market along with processing and clearing of completed trades.

BibServer API: The service facilitates sharing of bibliographic metadata between separately maintained collections. It aims to allow interaction among repositories documenting human knowledge across disciplines to support improved scholarship. Scholars accumulate large, separate collections of bibliographic citations like Zotero, Bibsonomy, and Mendeley in the course of their work, and this service helps them to share that information for easier research by all.

The API implements the elasticsearch API, and methods support upload of a local collection with specifications for access such as relevant search facets and overall statistics for the sources included. Methods also support submission of search queries to the combined collection with filtering parameters to control results returned.

Desire2Learn API: Desire2Learn is an online learning platform that offers a variety of online learning products. Desire2Learn offers numerous features for both teachers and students for online learning/

The Desire2Learn API allows developers to access and integrate the functionality of Desire2Learn with other applications and to create new applications. Some example API methods include managing user accounts, managing discussion forums, modules, and projects, and accessing gradebooks and dropboxes.

EBI Kalign API: Kalign was developed to improve the speed and accuracy of multiple sequence alignments, which are a fundamental part of analyzing biological data. It uses the fast and accurate Wu-Manber string-matching algorithm to perform multiple sequence alignments on DNA, RNA, and protein sequences. The Kalign API provided by the European Bioinformatics Institute can be accessed via SOAP or REST protocols.

EBI MAFFT API: MAFFT (Multiple Alignment using Fast Fourier Transform) is a multiple sequence alignment program for protein and nucleic acid sequences. It offers a range of multiple alignment methods that make it suitable for both high-volume and low-volume jobs. The MAFFT API provided by the European Bioinformatics Institute allows users to access this functionality via SOAP or REST protocols.

EBI MUSCLE API: MUSCLE (MUltiple Sequence Comparison by Log-Expectation) is a tool for the alignment of multiple nucleotide or amino acid sequences. Multiple sequence alignments are a crucial part of processing biological data. This tool provides a range of options that give users the choice of optimizing accuracy, speed, or some compromise between the two. The European Bioinformatics Institute offers access to MUSCLE as an API over SOAP or REST protocols.

EBI T-Coffee API: T-Coffee (Tree-based Consistency Objective Function For alignmEnt Evaluation) is a program that performs multiple sequence alignments on DNA, RNA, and protein sequences. The program's most unique characteristic is that it allows users to combine its results with those obtained from different alignment programs. It can then provide output based on the similarities between those results. The T-Coffee API provided by the European Bioinformatics Institute makes these functions available through SOAP and REST protocols.

Florida DHSMV API: The service from the Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles Department allows third-party providers to offer driver license exams. It allows interaction with the department by providers of proctored (in-person) and online testing for knowledge of road rules and traffic signs. The department anticipates working with private administrators of driving exams, as well.

API methods support generating an exam with questions from the department's database and uploading the student's answers. Methods then score the exam and return results for the student.

FuturePrice Data API: The FuturePrice Data API gives developers a cross-platform API to access real time and chronicled tick data and statistics for all shares listed on NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX.

The API provides streaming and standard request/response mechanisms for complete market feeds. In addition, the API provides a variety of presentation styles for the information it pulls.

Kariru Library Search API: The service consolidates data from 2000 Japanese online library catalogs to allow streamlined search against the aggregated data. Search results indicate the resources found, designated by ISBN, item access status, and the database where it was found, allowing the user to track down the resource and access it. The service also indicates libraries local to a specified latitude and longitude.

API methods allow input of a resource ISBN and user location. Returned data include library databases listing the item, library locations, and access policies. The site and documentation are in Japanese.

Lica API: The service renders uploaded photos as line drawings with simplified, stylized contours. Users can specify the levels of detail and extent of processing during conversion to control the appearance of the output.

API methods support upload of a photo along with parameters for control of the conversion process. Methods also track the original and converted images and allow reprocessing for additional modification.

mixi Graph API: The Japanese social networking service provides connections between friends and contacts, encouraging interaction and sharing of status updates, links, media, and other resources. It works through graphs connecting people accounts, building and managing membership of groups, posting status updates and diary entries, and uploading media resources like photos and voice recordings. The service plans expansion to support interactions among employees and business colleagues, as well.

API methods support a range of services, starting with user accounts, connections, and group management. Update and Diary APIs handle status and mini-blog posts. Communication APIs allow access to voice posts and photos.

Moolah's advertising platform also provides services for analytics, intelligent ad serving, and lead generation, in addition to a SMS version of their mobile web advertising services. Full documentation is not publicly available.

Nature.com Blogs API: The Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is a publisher of scientific and medical information both in print and online. NPG publishes journals, online databases, and services across a variety of sciences and clinical medicine. Nature.com also hosts blogs from the Nature Network, publishing blogs written by in-house editors and journalists.

The Blogs API provides a programmatic interface to the Blogs indexing and aggregation services, giving developers tools to search blogs, posts, stories (collections of aggregated blog posts about a topic), and papers published or indexed by the Nature Network. This API exposes methods that support queries based on a variety of aspects such as content tag, keyword, and index metadata. This RESTful API returns data in JSON, though some queries support Atom/RSS and CSV formats.

PayPal Segmentation Service API: X.Commerce, eBay's conglomeration of e-commerce platforms and services, has created the Segmentation Service to empower website and application owners with data about the buying and usage habits of different segments of their user population. When webmasters have the email address of visitors with PayPal accounts, they can employ the Segmentation Service to gain insights to user purchasing habits.

The Segmentation Service lets webmasters obtain information such as the average buying frequency of a customer, their average spending value, or how recently they used PayPal to complete a transaction. This API uses OAuth, and can return data as either XML or JSON.

StageBloc API: StageBloc is a website creation platform. StageBloc provides a front-end framework for users to create their own website and integrate their social network accounts with the website. StageBloc also offers mobile applications.

The StageBloc API allows developers to access and integrate the functionality of StageBloc with other applications and to create new applications. API access is currently only available to StageBloc customers and public documentation is not available. Interested developers should contact StageBloc at hi@stagebloc.com.

Tweet Marker API: The service logs a user's accesses to Twitter via multiple platforms and tracks the last read tweet on any of them. This syncs access to a Twitter stream, allowing a user to continue reading where they left off, on any of the supported platforms.

API methods support identification of the specific user across multiple clients and platforms. Methods also mark the last tweet accessed under that user account and retrieve the user's timeline from that point forward.

UNICEF 50/50 API: The service provides a payment gateway for contributions to United Nations UNICEF projects. It allows individual projects to advocate separately for funds to support famine relief, with a common payment mechanism to deliver funds to UNICEF. The list of international fund-raising projects currently approaches 50 in 8 different countries.

API methods support listing projects, their details, and donations to date along with processing donation payments in GBP, USD, or Euros. Methods also allow tracking of project pledges, campaigns, and campaigners and updates for donations made outside the system.

VoiceBunny API: VoiceBunny is an online platform for voiceovers and voice talent. Customers of VoiceBunny can search voice talent, upload projects for voiceovers, and run voiceover contests.

The VoiceBunny API allows developers to access and integrate the functionality of VoiceBunny with other applications and to create new applications. Some example API methods include managing voiceover projects, list voice talent information, and retrieve account balances.

The vyu.me API allows developers to access and integrate the functionality of vyu.me with other applications and to create new applications. Public documentation is not available; interested developers should sign up here for an API key: http://vyu.me/apiSignUp.php.

WallaBee API: WallaBee is a location-based collectible game application for mobile phones. Users of WallaBee can collect items from locations to build collections, buy items from the WallaBee store to complete their collections, and play the game with friends.

The WallaBee API allows developers to access and integrate the functionality of WallaBee with other applications and to create new applications. Some example API methods include searching and returning items and images, displaying activity feeds, and accessing store items.

Wikimeta API: The service adds functions for annotation and semantic tagging of online content. It enables a user to apply free-text tags or longer text descriptions to content, which then is available for access by text-mining and content analysis applications. The service supports both local access and external access by other systems, with annotations in English or French, including full compatibility with LinkedData Network applications.

API methods support submission of annotations with documents, with language and annotation size specified. The system then supports automated access to accumulated content annotations via linked data technologies.

About the author:Adam DuVander
-- Adam heads developer relations at Orchestrate, a database-as-a-service company. He's spent many years analyzing APIs and developer tools. Previously he worked at SendGrid, edited ProgrammableWeb and wrote for Wired and Webmonkey. Adam is also the author of mapping API cookbook Map Scripting 101.

[...] Google is focusing a lot on Google Plus now and especially seems to be doing so in emerging markets. It announced three upcoming hackathons in Africa: Remember to start today on getting those creative juices flowing! Go [...]